Birmingham Sunday (review)

As public attitude and will lagged far behind federal legislation in the post Brown v. Board South, the struggle for and against racial integration erupted in violence, from covert attacks to street riots. Brimner recalls one of the most gruesome and shameful incidents—the September 15, 1963 bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, in which four young girls lost their lives. Readers will be instantly riveted by the opening account of the bombing, with the tension heightened by a description of the doomed girls primping in the downstairs bathroom for the day's activities. Brimner then turns abruptly to extensive background on the civil rights movement and escalating violence, a discussion that takes up fully half the text. Six brief biographical sketches of the deceased children (including two boys who also died that day—one shot by a policeman, the other by a white teenager) follow, as well as a few pages of information on the perpetrators, all of whom were convicted years after the bombing. While this isn't an in-depth exploration of the event, it's a useful factual overview of a historically significant tragedy, and readers content with a shallower but broader view of things will appreciate the abundance of black-and-white photos, source notes, and reading suggestions. Certainly fans of Christopher Paul Curtis' The Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963 (BCCB 1/96) will want to consider this title to expand their understanding.